


DSM-VI

by Hiddlefun



Series: (Getting) Better Together [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Angst, Attempted recovery, Coping, Gen, Introspection, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 14:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13249710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiddlefun/pseuds/Hiddlefun
Summary: Depression's not a strong enough word for what 23 year old Marik Ishtar is experiencing. They need a stronger word, he decides.





	DSM-VI

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic in probably over a year! I had no real goal while writing this, and just threw it together in one sitting. It felt good to get something out.

What was he? Man? Boy? Who could say?

He didn’t know any longer. 

Perhaps, for a time, he had. 

His life was divided in phases; the life before the ritual, his life until the scars healed, the damning of his soul to devourement when killing his father, the fights surrounding the pharaoh, and now…this. Whatever it was. In that life before knife went into back, he had known himself as Child. There had been dreams of what he would do when he was Grown Up, even if he hated studying to ready himself to be just that. The scarring had marked him a Man; identity in flux, he was robbed of a childhood, and shared what little of it he had left with a part of himself he hadn’t been able to fathom. Looking back, he could tell that his actions with his crime group and running to Japan had been those of a child; no one else could touch that level of pointed, unreasonable cruelty. 

He had once sworn that he wouldn’t ever just let life happen to him again. But laying in the middle of his frustratingly giving bed, belly twisting in knots and too depressed to give a single shit, he found himself teetering dangerously close to doing just that. Teeth catching his cracking lower lip, he huffed. The action just barely caught his oily bangs, moving them just enough to make them stick to his forehead. 

Gross.

But was it gross enough to get him to go and actually take a shower?

He knew he wouldn’t want to leave it once he did finally get under the stream of water, but he couldn’t motivate himself to move. Again. 

How many days had it been? 3? 4?

Probably no more than that. One of his siblings would have stepped in at that point, he was sure.

Perhaps he was still a child, if having to be made to even bathe was anything to go by. More huffs and groans accompanied the thought. That night’s cold sweat made his tank stick to his scars in a way rough enough to finally convince him to move. He needed to change shirts, but there was no point in doing so while still dirty. A shower it was.

He nearly stepped right into his siblings as he opened the door. Ishizu’s hand gently tapped his chest before she could stop it, caught knocking on a door that was no longer within reach. She smiled at him sheepishly, hand falling to her side and twitching there as she tried to power through the urge to clean it immediately. Mm, it had probably been at least 4, then. With a lazy wave he moved passed them, heading for their shared bathroom. 

One part of him missed having his own place. He’d fallen behind on rent thanks to his seeming unceasing depression over the last few months, and his siblings had happily made space for him. It was good to have them there, making sure he was at least partway taken care of, but sometimes, sometimes he just wanted to be allowed to wallow. 

The bathroom door closed, taking a little effort to lift it on the right as it reached the door jam. There lock had been removed from every door to communal areas (which stung, and was honestly more than a little humiliating, but he couldn’t find the words to argue on his behalf), but the sticking of the warped door did provide a little privacy. Did he dare look in the mirror? He suspected the picture wouldn’t be much different from the last time. Usually radiant bronze skin would be oily and dull from his having avoided both water and sun for weeks. Formerly lustrous and forever-styled hair would hang limp and sticky, shine nowhere to be seen. Brilliant eyes, haggard. Perhaps he’d look a little more gaunt, body eating away at whatever was left of his muscle. Probably seemed perpetually hungover, if he bothered to check more than once a month or so. On anybody else the look would make it pretty clear that they were depressed, but with one who had for years meticulously cared after their appearance as he had, it was clear that ‘depressed’ had been careened passed ages ago. He’d spent a few days thinking about what they should name this new state—maybe they’d name it after him. 

Maybe then he could remember who he was.

He couldn’t even remember having stripped himself of his dirty clothes, yet the water had apparently been beating against his chest long enough that the water was now at a shocking level of cold. Had he even soaped? His shivers made the muscles tighten in his back, a sensation that always made him senselessly worry that his scars would rip apart. Relying upon the hope that muscle memory hadn’t failed him, he cleared out of the shower and stepped into a towel that someone must have left for him. Had it been before he got in? Did they bust in and put it there? 

They probably meant to feed him too, if precedent held. 

An awkward dinner commenced. 

The food was hot enough to wake him up a bit, the spices reminding him of something drifting just beyond conscious memory. If he had had the energy to chase it, the recognition could have maybe helped to pull him out of the Marik he was feeling, if only a little. 

But he didn’t, so it didn’t.

\-----------

Two more months passed. The blonde had started going outside, which was…progress. At first it was just laying out on the balcony of their new apartment, tanning. It was exactly the same amount of lazing and wallowing, but with more Vitamin D. His skin darkened quickly, hair lightened even faster, and the need to wash off lotion meant he was bathing more. Sometimes, he almost felt…good. The Marik seemed less Marik, and more like just regular depression on those days. 

He stepped onto the bus, tugging his hood down with one hand and tapping his pass against the pole with the other. He couldn’t wait until he was consistently lucid enough to be trusted with driving again. The scar from the last time he had dissociated while driving still curved up from his right hip to just under his ribcage in the middle of his torso. It was an ugly, rough thing, shredded instead of meticulously carved. Though the healing process had brought with it too many memories, he found he rather liked it now. A few belly shirts had found their way back into his wardrobe, along with a several playful clubbing outfits. He hadn’t trotted the more adventurous ones out just yet, not quite feeling up to it, but just seeing the splashes of bold color in his closet had made his chest feel a little lighter. When had his wardrobe grown so dark?

The bus skidding to an inexpert stop shook him out of it, conveniently only one short stop passed where he had intended. With a nod to the driver, he took off on foot towards the art museum. Nearly all of his knowledge of art started and ended with Ancient Egypt and card art, but the internship they were offering had sounded interesting.

Interesting was something that had become foreign to him, so he had decided to sign up. It had been easy enough to have somebody draw up a fake resume, and he was certain that his old Namu impression would help him ace any interviews (not to mention his sister’s museum background, if he really had to pull strings like that), but he was really taking a shitty bet when trying to navigate his disorders enough to be able to function on someone else’s schedule. The feeling that came with that thought alone had nearly talked him out of it on multiple occasions, but here he was, standing on wide concrete stairs, resume in hand.

Okay, maybe he should’ve called ahead to schedule an interview. 

Maybe some part of him had tried to set himself up for failure with that.

When had it gotten so cold?

Nope, nope, it wasn’t cold. He was just shaking.

Namu face, Namu voice, Namu nerves.

Breathe.

\-------------

The therapist (he shuddered to call him ‘his’) told him that he should be proud of himself for all of the progress he had supposedly made in defeating the Marik this far. He couldn’t see it, and wished that the shrink would adopt that name for it like he had, instead of just dancing around it with euphemisms for his myriad of issues. It would make things go faster, at least. When was the last time things hadn’t been unbearably slow?

Good ol’ doc had insisted that it wasn’t a good practice to be calling his symptoms that, given his history with his alter, but his nihilistic Marik-induced humor argued otherwise.

‘If it helped him cope and wasn’t hurting anybody, where was the harm?’ he’d snidely ask.

He refused to ask himself if it actually made him any happier.

\------------

His internship had turned to a full-time job offer. The thought of being permanently tied to a museum quite honestly freaked him the fuck out. Sure, he could leave at any point, technically, but the idea of being subject to a hierarchy of bosses set his instincts screaming. He didn’t want a hierarchy of bosses telling him what to do, when to do it, how to do it, or god forbid punishing him for whatever he did do. Bile rose in his throat right alongside the panic hammering from chest to head. He had to fuck this up, and had to do it now.

The thought that he could just politely decline didn’t occur to him even once.

Funny how a robbed childhood left him an immature adult.

\------------

He’d started going out again. This time, it was actually with a series of other people. 

Keeping things casual and low key was more difficult than he had thought, especially when he had tried contacting old flames. There was so much expectation. Even if he was more stable now than during the rest of the year, didn’t they understand that he wasn’t the same person as then? That he wasn’t the same person as even a few weeks ago?

When he tried to explain, they’d laugh and say that he had always been fickle. That was true, even he couldn’t deny it, but that wasn’t what he meant. No one ever gave him a chance to elaborate before they were trying to shove their tongue down his throat or hands down his pants, so he gave up on trying. Sometimes he let them do what they wanted in the club, in the back of the car leaving the restaurant, whatever—he felt himself sinking deeper, back into the pit he had been clawing his way out of.

It all made him feel so sick.

\-----------

Could he be a Grown Up if he’d started his life so behind the curve, cut off from all but three people in this world of billions? 

No one celebrated as his 24th birthday arrived.

One party had been more than enough for a lifetime.

**Author's Note:**

> May write a thief or citronshipping sequel, so watch out for that!


End file.
